History in Architecture

by Tim Grimes

Istanbul grew on me. It is scruffy and dusty and mostly quite down at heel, but its fascinating history, is shown in stunning architecture.

We found the people polite and charming - even the restaurateurs and street vendors who vie for your business. Unhelpfully, post boxes don't exist - or, if they do I didn't find any. I left my postcards under the door of the closed airport post office, with no great faith that they would be delivered. Equally unhelpfully, the pavements, especially in the Old City, are consistently uneven, requiring almost as much vigilance as crossing the road, in a city with 14 times the number of road accidents as the UK. On the other hand, Istanbul is very well supplied with working ATMs and it is even possible to draw Euros and US Dollars, as well as Turkish lire (YTL), from some banks' machines.

We chose to fly into Sabiha Gokcek Airport because easyJet's fare was so low. Maybe false economy if staying in the Old Town - it cost £20 return per head for an unreliable private bus, and that was after researching the internet well into the night. I could have spent over £80 for two. Also the airport is run by indolents, even by airport standards: check-in is slow, duty free is so slow that it isn't worth the wait; and the cafe is unbelievably expensive - and slow. Next time, I shall probably use the main Ataturk Airport.

We stayed at the excellent and newly-renovated Niles Hotel, www.hotelniles.com, which had quoted €65.00 per night - less a discount for cash. Certain hotels, tour buses etc seem to prefer to quote in Euros for some reason; the exchange rate to convert back to YTL isn't always the most favourable, so it is worth taking any left-over Euro notes from last year's holiday in France. From our hotel window, we could see Turkish workers making the clothes, shoes and bags to be sold in their shops below, seemingly for all waking hours, including Saturday. The Old City has the best priced hotels, is closest to most of the places which we visited and is well served by transport to the New City.

Whilst it might be one of the largest cities in Europe, with a population of up to 20m, and 2.0m visitors per year, its division into three: (i) the Old City in the west, divided by a waterway called the Golden Horn from (ii) the New City in the centre; and, further east across the international Bosphorus waterway, (iii) the Asian side - makes it easily navigable for the visitor. Tram and ferry transport, once you understand it, is cheap, at YTL1.30 a shot wherever you go, and efficient. The fast and frequent main tram line links most of the important buildings in the Old City, with the Station and the Eminonu docks and across the Golden Horn to the New City. We found the "City Sightseeing" bus, with its incoherent commentary, to be a waste of YTL35.00.

Constantinople, which was founded by the roman emperor Constantine in the Fourth century, became the ostentatious capital of the eastern, Byzantine, Roman Empire. Constantine converted to Christianity, and the new religion was celebrated by his successor, Justinian, building the Church of St Sophia - for a long while, the largest religious building in the world.

Justinian also completed the Basilica Cistern (YTL10 to visit, see website for more information at www.basilicacistern.com) an underground 1,000 sq ft reservoir, collecting water from the Belgrade woods 12 miles away, by aqueducts parts of which survive in the city. The cistern was disused throughout the Ottoman period, but renovated in the 1980s. It is a fabulous pillared underground chamber built with 12ft thick brick jointed with waterproof mortar, contains a vast freshwater pool supporting a wealth of small fish. We relaxed in the cafe down there, listening to the haunting music and watching the orange lights, which now fill the building.

Although Arabs had brought Islam to Constantinople as early as the seventh century, it was not until the eleventh century that Selcuk Turks had captured much of Byzantium, shrinking the empire to Constantinople and its environs. Various changes of hands (and religions) followed, with the Ottomans reconquering the city, and renaming it Istambul (City of Islam) in the Fifteenth century. The Church of St Sophia, with its brilliant coloured mosaics and 4 acres of gold tiling, so impressed sultan Mehmed II, on his reconquest of the city in 1453, that he retained it and converted it to a Mosque. Under Ataturk, it was deconsecrated to become the St Sophia Museum.

It was Mehmed who also built the royal Topkapi Palace (see website at www.topkapisarayi.gov.tr) in 1465. The palace consists of a number of courtyards with opulent tiled rooms and inspiring collections in the cloisters. It occupies the highest point of the Old Town and overlooks the Sea of Marmara, at the confluence of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. The palace's domes and minarets form part of the famous night-time skyline. Topkapi was to be the seat of the sultans for the next 400 years. Much as I hate stuffy-old-houses, the several buildings, brilliantly decorated with mosaics and exhibitions of sultans' treasures, couldn't fail to impress.

The development of Istanbul reflected the growth of the Ottoman Empire and, by the sixteenth century, the Ottomans ruled an area from Hungary to Persia and from Egypt to bits of Russia. This was the high point for each. Under the presciently-named Suleyman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire's progress was thereafter less magnificent, and it was consolidation and withdrawal all the way.

The Grand Bazaar, covering a grid of vaulted passages and streets, dates from this period. It now sells a huge variety of low-priced designer lookalikes, as well as local clothes, jewellery and carpets - presumably mostly to tourists. In fact there is generally no shortage of carpet sellers in town, but the luggage restrictions on easyJet would make tourist purchases a bit tricky. Whilst the salesmen in the bazaar and elsewhere are enthusiastic, they are not too persistent: the key seems to be not to make eye contact if you don't want to buy, and to politely but firmly reject their advances. There were uniformed policemen at each of the Bazaar entrances and the place was pretty well conducted. Generally, we thought the local constabulary was probably one of the largest employers in Istanbul. I wasn't sure whether to be comforted by this noticeable presence, or alarmed that it was necessary, but I inclined to the former.

The other great commercial market, the Spice Bazaar, was built in 1663, to sell spices from Egypt (then part of the Ottoman Empire) and to fund the nearby Yeni Mosque; it is smaller than the Grand Bazaar, but it is brilliantly coloured and steeped in the smells of cinnamon, coriander, paprika, sage, and teas and coffees. The same century had seen the completion of what is perhaps the most famous of the Istanbul mosques - the Blue Mosque. It was the first mosque which we saw, it is probably the biggest, and it made a tremendous impression: a huge square expanse under a dome supported by four enormous columns and beautifully decorated in traditional blue and while tiles. Visiting several other mosques, including the Beyazit Mosque (named after Mehmed's son and built in 1506); the Suleymaniye Mosque (late 1500s); and the Yeni Mosque (the New Mosque) (1660), confirmed the typical building pattern, which also included adjacent walled courtyards - whose proportions consistently prevented taking a good photographs of the mosques and their minarets together, without a wide-angle lens. Many of the mosques of the period were built by Mirmar Sinan: a rapidly-promoted Greek Orthodox cavalry officer, he took on a second career as an architect, at the age of 50, designing and building 79 mosques, as well as dozens of palaces and many other buildings, in the latter part of his astonishing life from c1500 to 1589. We weren't surprised that the magnificent Suleymaniye Mosque, just north of the University, was reckoned to be one of Sinan's greatest achievements.

The following two centuries witnessed the reversal of Ottoman fortunes, whose losses included the Crimea to Russia. In the 1850s, Crimean War brought UK and France, together with the Ottoman Empire, against Russia. Sadly we missed the Crimea Memorial Church, close to the Galata Tower, which was designed by Street (who also designed the Law Courts in London) and which was renovated in the 1980s. At Uskudar there is a museum dedicated to Florence Nightingale which, sadly, we didn't have time to visit.

The failure of Ottoman debt, in the 1870s, partly due to the cost of the extravagant Dolmabahce Palace, led to European receivers taking over its international debt and internal finances, and accelerating the colonisation of Pera, the New City, today called Beyoglu.

The now pedestrianised Istiklal Street (pointedly chosen as "Independence Street", but built as the Grande Rue de Pera) is the main street running through the New City, from close to the Galata Tower to Taksim Sq. The embassies (consulates, since the capital of the Turkish Republic moved to Ankara) of the UK (by Barry, who designed the Houses of Parliament), Russia, Netherlands, Sweden and Italy, interspersed among art nouveau facades of western shops, almost recall the nineteenth century European flavour. There is still a vintage tram which clangs its way up and down Istiklal Street for YTL1.30 - unless you just hop on and hang off the tram on its slow progress. We had dinner in the stylish Cité de Pera - a former flower market consisting of an L-shaped passage between its buildings - alongside Nevizade St, one of the many art nouveau passages and alleys leading off Istiklal Street. The still-attended RC church of St Anthony sits along Istiklal Street, as another reminder of the European influence.

In the 1880s Georges Nagelmakers, a Belgian, brought the romance of the Orient Express, which terminated at Sirkeci. With the railway came the hotels: the Pera Palace (Istanbul's equivalent of Singapore's Raffles, or Hong Kong's Peninsula) was closed for renovation when we visited until late 2008, but there is the rather passé Grand Hotel de Londres, which those who have never visited Londres might find atmospheric. It has to be admitted that the Station has passed its best. Almost cocking a snook at the opulent European era, a Shell petrol station has been plonked down right in front; the exterior of the Station has been repainted a hideous pink and all interior historical detail painted over as if to expunge the past. Most of the architecture remains and the gallery of pictures in the "Orient Express" Restaurant (see website at www.orientexpressrestaurant.com) at Platform 1 almost suggests the atmosphere of the train steaming in, discharging its wealthy passengers. The menu wasn't brilliant there, but we found food to be pretty unexceptional generally, whether allegedly "Turkish" or otherwise. And McDonald’s, Burger King et al have extended their reach to Istanbul.

After dinner at the Station, we spent YTL30 per head to see the whirling dervishes' performance in the former booking office. The entertainment value accrued from an unintentionally ridiculous performance by tall-hatted begowned part-time dervishes (I think they had day jobs as waiters - I am sure that I recognised one from lunchtime) playing discordant music (with more flats that an Istanbul tower block) and incanting ritualistic imprecations, to the shuffling about and repetitious bowing by five of their number, who then started turning around in that way that Mother told you would make you dizzy. We supposed that the accomplishment lay in the ability to whirl thus, without falling over, but the introductory literature talked about the whirlers reaching a state of ecstasy. Personally, I thought they were faking it.

Close to the Station is the busy and fascinating port of Eminonu with its constant traffic of public ferries connecting to all points on the Bosphorus - mostly at YTL1.30 each way - and the rather more expensive tour boats.

European influence is obvious in the Dolmabahce Palace, to which sultan Abdulmecid, had moved his court in 1856. As someone whose nightmares have included National Trust visits, I was surprised to enjoy the Dolmabahce Palace. Part stuffy-old-house, but also a series of stately rooms, culminating in the magnificent mosque-like ceremonial hall - the largest throne room in the world, decorated by a crystal chandelier given by Queen Victoria - where the last sultans received guests and conducted the business of state. This almost Versailles-like palace sits majestically alongside the Bosphorus, undoubtedly intended to demonstrate Ottoman influence and power to the passing ships of all nations. When we visited, there were several Turkish warships on the Bosphorus, presumably attempting to convey the same message today.

Germany was a major European influence and the Ottoman Empire chose the wrong side in World War I emerging, after the Treaty of Sevres, with the borders of modern Turkey. The Gallipoli museum is a long-day bus tour from the Old City. Kamal Ataturk, hero of Gallipoli, led independence from the League of Nations occupation in the 1920s, forming the modern Turkish Republic, moving the capital to Ankara, adopting the Latin script, ethnically cleansing, liberating women and modernising dress. Whilst over 90% of the population is Moslem, few stop work to pray 5 times daily, most women wear western dress, and non-Moslems are welcomed at the mosques.
Ataturk lived his last years at the Dolmabahce Palace. From there, we crossed the Bosphorus, by local ferry, to Uskudar, where we were inclined to agree with our hotelier's advice that "there is nothing on the Asian side". We were surprised to hear later that that was where Istanbul's "elite" lived, and we completely missed any evidence of the "nostalgia filled streets" which the guide book alleged. Uskudar looked a pretty ordinary workaday eastern town.

There may have been a conscious architectural effort to overlook the nineteenth century European influences, but certainly the twentieth century town planners must have studied at Coventry - witness the main Taksim Sq a weedy grassland around a grubby bus station surrounded by communistic concrete and glass - a desultory setting for the National Memorial hidden away in one corner.

Istanbul is scruffy and dusty, and mostly down at heel - but for those willing to put in a bit of preparation, its fascinating history, evidenced by its stunning architecture will reward a 4 or 5 day visit.

First published in VISA issue 74 (Aug 2007)